| An effort to re-edit and re-translate a set of ancient magical handbooks from Graeco-Roman Egypt opened paths for exploring the practices by which ancient knowledge was transmitted. |
Thanks to the climatological conditions and scribal practices of Graeco-Roman Egypt, a number of handbooks from that region (and from no other in the Graeco-Roman ancient world) have reached us. These handbooks are precious witnesses to practices and processes of cultural transmission: the creation, communication, transformation, and preservation of knowledge (both in text and image) across history. Among these handbooks some of the most numerous concern magical knowledge, a field, it should be noted, of extraordinary diffusion and interest, from Mesopotamia to the present. These ancient magical handbooks provide unique entry into a corpus of knowledge at a particular period in a very long history that is otherwise lightly documented, and to the practices by which that field of knowledge was taught and transmitted. More than 40 such handbooks survive, some of them in a fragmentary state. This project re-edited and re-translated these handbooks, as well as carried out the first large-scale study of them as material objects and media of cultural transmission.
Edward Olson Professor of Classics in the Department of Classics and the College
University of Chicago
Christopher Faraone’s research interests focus on Ancient Greek poetry, religion and magic. His recent works include Vanishing Acts: Deletio Morbi as Speech Act and Visual Design on Ancient Greek Amulets, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 115 (London 2013) and...
Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Egyptology, the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and the Program on the Ancient Mediterranean World in the Department of Classics
University of Chicago
Janet H. Johnson's main interests include Egyptian language and Egypt in the "Late Period" (1st millennium B.C.). She is Director of the Chicago Demotic Dictionary Project.
For more on Johnson's research and publications, please visit her faculty page.
Professor of Classics and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
University of Chicago
Since 2002, Sofía Torallas Tovar has been the curator of the Papyrological collections at the Abadia de Montserrat and directs the research conducted by the CSIC and Universitat Pompeu Fabra at the Abbey (http://dvctvs.upf.edu). She participates in...
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This conference centered mainly on papers given by an international team of papyrologists who have collaborated on the
Carousel with 3 slides shown at a time. Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate, or the slide dot buttons at the end to jump to slides.
This conference centered mainly on papers given by an international team of papyrologists who have collaborated on the
